Mist of Shadows
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Myst and the Magic Shop Part 11
🕑 Added 2022-05-20 21:49:39 +0000 UTCMyst glanced up from the boss fight he was currently fighting on Final Fantasy IV when Alura sat down on the beach towel next to him. "What's up?"
"You're going on an adventure, aren't you?" Alura asked.
"What makes you say that?" Myst asked, curious where she'd gotten that idea, mostly because he was.
"You were asking Aqualad about the location of the ruins of ancient Atlantis and you asked Athena about the location of Xebel," Alura replied.
"So?" Myst asked, trying and probably failing to sound casual as he went back to fighting the boss on his game, glad that the game was turn-based.
Alura grinned at Myst. "So, you waited until Aqualad was out of earshot."
"Let me guess, you want to come with me?" Myst asked.
"Nope, I want a share of the treasure…" Alura snickered at the surprised look on his face, "Of course I want to go with you, this is a chance to explore. Besides, Lewis won't shut up about getting to hunt giant rats, exploring the bottom of the ocean would be way more interesting."
"Sorry, no dice," Myst told her.
"Is this because I'm fourteen?" Alura asked, annoyed that he thought she was too young when he wasn't that much older than she was.
"No," Myst assured her. "If it was just the age thing, I'd ask your parents and they'd probably sign off on it."
"So what's the problem?" Alura asked as Hestia and Athena walked over.
"The problem is the area I want to explore has giant monsters, probably mythological in nature," Myst explained as he worked on setting up another round of spells to use on the boss.
"I'm…" Alura trailed off as she realized that the giant monsters might have enough magic to hurt her. "Oh, you're saying they might have enough magic to be dangerous?"
"Basically," Myst agreed.
"What are you looking for?" Athena asked softly as she flopped down next to her cousin on the beach towel.
Myst glanced between the twins. "Were you eavesdropping?"
Hestia pointed to her right ear. "Kryptonian hearing, it's a blessing and a curse."
"I'm looking for magical relics," Myst admitted as the boss finally died. "Atlantis was the capital of a magical empire, there should have been hundreds or thousands of magical items scattered around the city when it sank beneath the ocean."
Hestia frowned. "I'm reasonably sure any relics we recover would be the property of the Atlantean people."
"Considering they've been lost and buried under the ocean for at least ten thousand years, I'm pretty sure everything counts as salvage, at least legally," Athena pointed out.
Hestia shook her head. "I doubt Atlantis would agree."
"Which is why I wasn't planning on telling them," Myst said, knowing that the crown would eventually be found and the area damaged if he left things to play out like they had in the cartoon. 'Of course, that's assuming Arion's crown even exists in this version of DC. Worst case, I waste a couple of hours looking at the bottom of the ocean with my x-ray vision.'
"What are you planning on doing with the relics if you find any?" Hestia asked, wondering if she should tell her mother.
Myst saved his game at the save point, wanting to make sure he didn't have to deal with the boss again. "Assuming I can talk Kara out of some Kryptonian equipment that will hold up to the pressure, I'm planning on recording everything and reverse engineering any magical items I find before giving the location of the ruins to Aquaman."
"You're not keeping it secret?" Alura asked.
"I wasn't planning on it," Myst replied, fairly sure he wasn't going to find anything worth the trouble other than Arion's crown and that was a long shot. "Of course, knowing my luck and sense of direction, I'll probably just spend a couple of days flying around and soaking up sunlight without finding anything significant."
"Where are you heading?" Robin asked as he walked over with Kid Flash, Zatanna and Lewis.
"I was thinking about looking for buried treasure," Myst replied with a grin, fairly sure they'd think he meant sunken ships.
"I don't suppose you have any magical items that would give me X-ray vision?" Wally asked thoughtfully.
Myst let his game system vanish. "Not yet but it's on my list, it would be useful for search and rescue."
"That's what I was thinking," Wally agreed, fairly sure it would help him save lives.
"Right, search and rescue," Athena teased.
Robin glanced at Zatanna then focused on Athena. "Not to mention making sure you're not about to get ambushed or checking the internal components of explosive devices."
"I wouldn't mind being able to check some boxes in the attic without opening them," Zatanna admitted, fairly sure she'd abuse a pair of X-ray glasses if she had them.
"You think they’re cursed?" Wally asked.
"Nah, I just don't want to have to repack everything," Zatanna replied with a grin.
Hestia laughed. "If you think that's bad, you should try cleaning out Hephaestus's storage room."
"As in the god?" Wally asked.
"Yeah, we traded cleaning his storage room for a month of lessons, it was a lot of work but it was totally worth it," Hestia replied with a grin.
Lewis smiled as he thought about his favorite teacher. "I'm looking forward to being able to ditch some of the safety gear."
"It's a bit annoying," Alura agreed.
Athena shrugged. "You get used to the heat."
"Only if you're part demigod," Alura muttered, thinking of the magical flames in his forge that she most certainly wasn't immune to.
"I don't suppose you have a way to turn people into demigods?" Robin asked, mostly joking.
"In theory," Myst admitted.
"In theory?" Robin asked in surprise.
"I'm reasonably sure I could find divine apples or ambrosia in a D&D world if I looked hard enough," Myst admitted.
Wally frowned. "You don't sound very enthusiastic about the idea."
"They're normally guarded by divine beasts," Myst pointed out.
"Or traps," Athena added.
"Not to mention some of the gods can be sore losers," Hestia complained, having plenty of stories of the gods cursing someone with lifelong issues because they were embarrassed or lost a challenge to a mortal.
"I'll probably take a look eventually," Myst admitted. "But I'm not going anywhere near that sort of nightmare until I have better defenses."
"Do you have other ways to reduce aging?" Wally asked, thinking about his 'uncle' Jay.
"Not currently but I can probably find a fountain of youth, various elixirs that reduce your age, there's a painting in Ravenloft that you can use to give yourself immortality if you're insane and there's a disease in Morrowind that gives you immortality at the cost of your sanity and physical health," Myst said thoughtfully.
"Cursed painting?" Zatanna asked.
"Yeah, about the only way to use it without going insane is to use a flute of luck or a potion of luck and destroy the painting. If you're real lucky, you'll get an uncursed version of immortality out of it but I wouldn't count on it," Myst warned them, thinking about his mage in an old D&D game where he'd pulled it off, much to the DM's annoyance.
"Are you saying the Fountain of Youth exists?" Wally asked, trying to keep an open mind.
"I'm saying there are magical fountains scattered in different worlds that reduce the drinker's age in various ways, some are cursed, some are helpful, most of them can only be found on occasion," Myst said, fairly sure most of the fountains had some method of protection to keep them from being exploited.
"And the disease?" Robin asked.
"Corpus," Myst replied, fairly sure there was more to the name but he couldn't remember the full title of the disease from Morrowind. "It basically turned everyone that got exposed into unaging monsters other than a dwarf who got horribly mutated and a legendary hero who found a cure and ended up with immortality and a physical enhancement."
"Let me guess, there was a prophecy involved?" Athena asked.
"Yep, which means the cure is probably a bit suspect or at least limited," he said, thinking about the researcher that had lost countless test subjects before the main character's successful test of his 'cure'.
"You're planning on running some tests aren't you?" Robin asked.
"Wouldn't you?" Lewis and Alura asked at the same time.
Myst glanced between Lewis and Alura then focused on Robin. "Assuming I can get a proper lab set up on the moon or in a spaceship I don't mind tossing at the sun, sure. The only way I'm getting near that disease is with a biohazard suit."
Robin frowned. "If it's that dangerous, why bother?"
"With great risk comes great rewards or maybe nothing ventured, nothing gained," Myst said cheerfully. "There's a chance that a halfway decent mad scientist could figure out why the main character survived the cure and figure out how to replicate it."
"Giving everyone immortality would destabilize the world," Robin pointed out.
Myst shook his head. "Even if we could fix the technical issues with the process, I wasn't planning on handing it out like candy, just to the best and the brightest or to people with exceptional talents."
"How is that fair?" Wally asked.
"It's not," Myst admitted, thinking about the people he'd dealt with when he worked for the school district. "Life isn't fair, but I'm not giving immortality to lunatics like the Joker or idiots that refuse to grow and learn."
"He has a point," Hestia cut in, thinking about Themyscira's history. "Immortality isn't for everyone."
"You'd be condemning people to death," Wally argued.
"If you want to use that 'logic'," Myst made finger quotes, "you're condemning people to a mundane existence by not sharing the speed formula."
Wally snorted. "That's not remotely the same."
"Because of the possibility of people ending up with time travel or because the speed force would probably get used up or crippled if you had that many people tapping it?" Myst asked.
"Yes," Wally replied.
"Just because you have a good reason doesn't make it less true," Myst pointed out. "Morality aside, I'm not insane enough to use a virus to give the world immortality, especially a magical one, viruses mutate in the wild. I'd never trust that it would stay stable."
"So why bring it up?" Wally asked.
"Because there's a difference between studying how something works so you can make a retrovirus that can't replicate outside of a lab or a gene altering super science device that you can use to make specific changes to improve people's health and something that rampages through the population, trying to turn everyone immortal," Myst explained.
"How would you pick the best?" Wally asked.
"Intelligence, adaptability and a reasonable amount of sanity," Myst admitted.
"Reasonable amount?" Robin asked.
"You have to be a little crazy to change the world," Myst pointed out. "Victor Freeze is a good example."
Robin shook his head. "I don't think he's remotely sane."
"He's a brilliant man that went a bit crazy when his wife got sick. He made some horrible choices in how he funded his research and he cut corners that someone with a 'better' moral compass wouldn't have, but he created something groundbreaking and shook Earth's understanding of thermodynamics in the process."
"He's a murderer," Robin argued.
"Not to excuse his crimes, but if you cure his wife and stick him in a lab, I have a feeling he'd be a model prisoner. It's certainly a lot more useful than sticking him in Arkham," Myst argued.
"Not a bad idea considering we found his wife," Batman said from behind Myst.
Myst did his best not to react to the fact that he hadn't noticed Batman, mostly because he was reasonably sure the man enjoyed sneaking up on people and didn't want to give him the satisfaction. 'At least the muffle enchantment is working,' he mused as he twisted his head to look at Batman.
"Where and how?" Robin asked.
"Hal found her frozen in Victor's lab under the University when he was searching for the source of the curse, we gave her one of the extra cure disease potions and Hal healed the physical damage from her disease and the freezing process."
"Any chance the League can arrange some sort of house arrest?" Myst asked.
"Not without uncomfortable questions being asked," Batman admitted.
"That seems a waste," Lewis complained.
Batman glanced at Lewis. "I agree, which is why I asked Kara to contact Lex and see if he could pull some strings and have him moved to a private facility outside of Gotham. It shouldn't be hard, holding him securely and keeping him alive consumes a significant portion of Arkham's budget."
"Did you manage to find the source of the curse?" Myst asked.
Batman glanced at Zatanna then focused on Myst. "We found a crypt in the middle of the city that was generating a nexus of dark magic. Jason Blood, Zatara and an 'associate' have reinforced the wards on the crypt which should hold until we find a better solution."
"Nigh immortal warlock?" Myst asked, wondering which version they'd end up with.
Batman nodded. "Jason Blood knew him a thousand years ago. He didn't go into details but I got the feeling that if he'd had a way to kill him, he would have."
Zatanna frowned as she thought about some of the things she'd read about in her father's books. "There are some rather nasty methods of acquiring immortality, most of them don't do great things for your sanity."
Wally snorted. "You're assuming they had any to start with."
Zatanna turned to look at Wally. "Considering some of the rituals turn you into abominations that eat souls to prolong their own existence, I'm really not."
"Lovely," Wally muttered.
Myst shrugged. "Magic is like science, you can do some amazing things or you can make bombs."
"Do you have any suggestions for dealing with the warlock?" Batman asked Myst.
"In no particular order, have Constantine steal his immortality, have one of the Green Lanterns toss him into the Source Wall or call their bosses and ask if they have an empty asteroid prison where they can stash him or if they know where a convenient black hole is or wait until the weekend and I'll see what happens when I close the door on someone in one of my game worlds," Myst offered.
"Would you honestly trust Constantine with immortality?" Batman asked.
"I can think of worse people," Myst replied, hoping they had one of the more sane versions of Constantine and making a mental note to hand him a copy of his anti-scrying gem.
"What about the phantom zone?" Alura asked.
Lewis shook his head. "He might be able to escape, it's happened before."
"We could banish him to the future," Wally suggested, fairly sure that would give them time to figure out a way to permanently deal with him.
"I'd rather banish him to another dimension or…" Myst trailed off as he realized he'd overlooked something dirt simple. 'Or we just trap his soul.'
"Something else?" Batman asked.
"Diana might be able to ask Hades to lock him up," Myst mused then shivered as felt something akin to spiders running down his spine.
Batman turned to look at Hestia and Athena. "Do you think he would?"
"Yes," a cultured and rather deep voice replied from behind Zatanna, suddenly there when before there was nothing.
Myst shivered as he turned and looked at the dark haired man wearing a black suit and carrying a cane, his black eyes the only constant in his ever changing face. 'Yeah, because that's not creepy.'
Athena froze when she saw Hades for a second. "Lord Hades."
"Lord Hades," Hestia offered with a bow.
"You're…" Wally trailed off as Alura covered his mouth with her hand.
Hades offered the twins a smile then turned his attention to Myst. "Interesting." He turned his attention towards Batman. "If you can deliver the warlock to my realm, I'll make sure he doesn't escape."
"Thank you," Batman replied, remembering Diana's warnings about the gods, about how being polite without being craven was a good idea unless they were in a rage.
Hades turned to look at Myst. "You have something I want."
"Which is?" Myst asked, resisting the urge to scramble away from the god as his eyes seemed to absorb the light and chill the air.
"I want," Hades started ominously then continued in a more normal voice, "a copy of your concealment magic, how much?" he asked with a grin.
"Considering the legends of cursed gold and gems and mortals asking for favors that result in horrible things," Myst said as he pulled a copy of the concealment gem out of his pocket and tossed it to Hades. "I think I'll pass. It's yours, free and clear of obligation, as long as it's going to be used to make the world a better place, prank a certain lightning god or to keep an innocent safe."
"You're passing on a favor?" Hades asked in surprise.
"If you want to give me a copy of a safe book on magic or a couple of pointers on practicing, I wouldn't refuse," Myst admitted, “but I try not to let my greed get me into trouble, so it’s best to err on the side of caution.”
Hades nodded with approval before he reached into his shadow and pulled out a leather tome and handed it to Myst. "This should be safe enough."
Wally waited until the 'god' vanished before asking, "What's the book about other than magic? Is it like healing, fire, wall of bread, duck control? With what you’ve said about magic it’s a broad enough topic that it could be anything."
"No clue," Myst replied as he put the book in his bag, making a mental note to ask Kent about it before he opened Hades' gift.
Robin glanced at Batman who shook his head a fraction of an inch. "We should probably get some sleep, it's getting late."
Batman pulled a passport from his belt pouch and handed it to Myst. "Give me a couple of days and we'll figure out something for your male identity."
“Are we really just going to ignore the fact that a god was just here?” Wally asked, looking around at everyone.
“It’s best not to dwell on them unless you want them paying attention to you,” Alura told him. “They feed off of attention.”
“So like teenage girls then,” Wally decided.
“Kinda… Hey!” Alura complained.
“Stop teasing her,” Athena told the red haired speedster with a grin.
Wally shrugged. “I needed something else to focus on, and joking with teammates counts.”
Alura smiled, pleased that he was including her in the group despite the fact that she’d just joined them, with none of the hazing that her older sisters insisted she would have to go through.
Myst opened the small booklet and looked at the picture of his female form. "Misty Zor-El?"
"Diana made a call, you're a citizen of Themyscira or at least your female form is," Batman replied.
"Thank you. I'll have to remember to thank Diana and her mother," Myst replied as he stood up and stepped off the beach towel, wanting to check on Arion's crown before someone dropped a line to Aquaman about it as asking forgiveness was easier than permission. 'One quick stop in New York then southeast to Xebel.'
Alura grinned as she floated to her feet. "Let us know if you find anything on your treasure hunt."
"That's the plan," Myst assured her, making a mental note to take her on some mundane treasure hunts to get to know her when he got back.
0o0o0
'This would be easier if they had a decent website,' Myst complained as he scanned the Metropolitan Museum of Art with X-ray vision for a sword that might not even be there. 'Okay, I found the historical weapons.' He grinned when he saw a creepy looking sheath in the form of a zombified arm that covered a gray metal blade. 'Ding,' he thought as he scanned the area for cameras and the best way to 'break' into the museum without breaking anything or getting caught.
'Okay, that closet doesn't have a camera on it, just near it,' Myst mused as he finished his hot chocolate, doing his best to ignore the people wandering around the street.
"Help!" a rather young and female voice called out in the distance.
'Damn it,' Myst complained as he tossed his empty cup into the trash and blurred towards the voice. 'I could have done without the hearing package…' his thoughts derailed when he found a nine or ten year old girl in her pajamas on a roof in an electrical cage along with a thin black haired guy in his late thirties that he didn't recognize and a teenager with wild black hair wearing an old fashioned suit that he was really hoping wasn't who he thought it was.
His hope died when he saw the large striped house cat sitting on the ledge off the roof watching the show. 'Shoot the cat, the Lord of Chaos vanishes until he gets a new anchor and murders me for messing with his cat.'
"Help!" the girl shouted when she noticed Myst floating in the air.
Klarion turned and looked at Myst. "Looks like we have a wannabe hero that doesn't even have a costume. Take care of him Abra, I'll set up the ritual to drain the girl."
"Abra? As in Abra Kadabra?" Myst asked, wanting to make sure he wasn't about to shoot an innocent person.
"You've heard of me?" Abra asked with a smirk.
"One of the seers I met mentioned your quest to pick up magic," Myst lied.
"What about it?" Abra asked warily.
"Do you want to drain kids of magic or would you prefer to work for it?" Myst asked, trying to figure out what type of person he was.
Abra laughed. "It doesn't matter, you don't have any magic to offer and the girl has a lot of it, she won't need it when she's dead."
"And you think Klarion is going to share?" Myst asked, feeling a hint of the same type of power from the girl as Hades.
"He's going to betray you!" Cassie called out.
"A deal is a deal," Klarion lied, curious where the stranger was going with things.
"What's your name?" Myst asked the girl.
"Cassie!" the girl called out.
'Of all the gin joints,' Myst mused as he focused on the blonde girl. "Cassie Sandsmark?"
"Ah…" Cassie trailed off as she realized she'd probably screwed up.
Abra stared at Myst in surprise. "You know the girl."
Myst laughed. "You have no idea how fucked you are," he told the wannabe magic user then used his heat vision to burn a hole through Abra's head when he started raising his arm to do something nasty with his 'wand'.
"Party foul," Klarion complained, annoyed that he'd need to find another way into The Tower of Fate. "Since when do heroes kill people?"
Myst forced himself to focus on Klarion as Abra's body crumpled like someone had cut his strings and not the fact that he'd just killed someone. 'Deal with it later,' he told himself.
"He was going to help me get a helmet," Klarion whined as he conjured two balls of red energy.
"Tell you what, if you let the girl go, I'll show you a shortcut into the Tower of Fate this weekend so you can swipe Nabu's helmet," Myst offered, doing his best not to let the creeping fear of being in over his head show.
"Why would you do that?" Klarion asked, suspicious of the teen's offer.
"Don't help him!" Cassie shouted.
"If I don't, he'll kill us," Myst told her. "Sometimes you have to make a deal to live another day. I'm sure you'll understand when you're older."
"I hate when people tell me that," Cassie complained, doing her best not to look at the dead body.
"Doesn't mean it's not true." Myst turned to look at Klarion. "Besides, Nabu is a body stealing bastard that pretends to be a hero."
Klarion raised his eyebrows. "You realize I'm worse, right?"
Myst shrugged. "You're a villain, you're supposed to be."
"What makes you think I can be trusted?" Klarion asked.
"Greed. I literally can't open the secret passage until the weekend and you want Nabu's helmet so you can drain the magic," Myst replied.
"What stops me from torturing you?" Klarion asked with a smirk.
"Technically?" Myst floated over and stuck his hand into the electrical cage that surrounded Cassie, absorbing the energy thanks to his gear and causing the cage to flicker for a few seconds before vanishing. "Nothing, but there's a chance that I can hurt you. Is it worth taking the chance when I want Nabu humbled or dead and you just need to wait a couple of days to see if I'm lying?"
"You could be stalling for time," Klarion pointed out, wondering what type of defenses the hero had if he could ignore the lightning that would have dropped an elephant.
"To what end?" Myst asked. "If I'm lying you'd just cause trouble or figure out another way to get into Nabu's tower."
"Fine, you've got until midnight Friday," Klarion said as he walked over and picked up his cat. "If you're not floating over the city at Midnight, I'll start destroying things."
"Deal," Myst replied, doing his best not to look at the area where Klarion vanished since he could still hear his heartbeat. "That could have gone worse."
"That was a bluff, right?" Cassie asked.
Myst focused on Cassie. "I'm afraid not, Klarion is a dangerous magic user."
"Do you think Nabu can beat him?" Cassie asked.
"He's a bit out of practice but he's a Lord of Order, he should be able to put up more of a fight than me if nothing else," Myst assured her, doing his best to sell the idea that he was just going through the motions because he thought Nabu was the best way to fight him, so he wouldn't expect problems until they reached the helmet. "Either way, we should get you home or to the police if you don't trust me."
"Mom would freak," Cassie complained. "I just have to climb down the fire escape and through my window."
"That's a lot easier than flying around the city until we find your house," Myst replied, sighing in relief when Klarion and his cat's heartbeat vanished. 'Make sure she gets home then find a door and toss Abra's body into a volcano in D&D. I can jump to the supply closet after casting invisibility, a quick polymorph spell should make a fake sword then I disenchant the damned thing and track down Greta before her brother murders her for a twisted magic sword.'
